Locatives and PPs in 15th century portuguese language: a movement research / Locativos e sintagmas preposicionados no português quatrocentista: um estudo do movimento

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2009

RESUMO

This research analyses the movement of prepositioned phrases (PPs), locative pronouns (Locs) and prepositioned locative pronouns (LocPs) in embedding structures of the 15th century Portuguese language, admitting that this period has variations which point to a grammar competition in Krochs (1989, 1994, 2003) framework. According to Martins (1994), Muidine (2000) and Moraes de Castilho (2005), latin locative pronouns hi and ende, and PPs had coexisted in Portuguese until the 15th century, when PPs supplanted the usage of locative pronouns. Indeed, taking the Dom Pedro de Menezes Cronic of Zurara (Brocardo, 1997) as the 15th century Portuguese representative corpus, we have found PPs coexisting with locatives in the same syntactic contexts, redoubling them as well. The redoubling structures have turned out to be relevant for indicating the specialization of the positions of these elements. Taking Kato and Tarallo (1989) into consideration, two frameworks are used: one formal model like the theory of Principles and Parameters, and abnother variational like Labov Sociolinguistics. The Quantitative Sociolinguistic methodology is considered for a descriptive analysis of the data, indicating linguistic facts that could affect the position of PPs and locative pronouns. Statistics have registered high percentages regarding the movement of locative pronouns on one hand, but low percentages of PPs movement on the other. LocPs registered similar numbers for movement and for no movement. Other factors such as syntactic function and kind of sentence influenced the movement of PPs and Locs.. The interpretative analysis of the results has happened in the framework of Generative Syntax, considering the Principles and Parameters Theory (Chomsky 1981, 1986). Taking clitics and subject as frontier demarcators, as stated by Martins (1994) and Belletti (2002), it has been possible to verify four positions to host Locs and PPs, all distributed along the sentential structure. In conclusion, it has been evident that PP and locative movement is a grammar competition case in the 15th century Portuguese language and it will accompany some changes which will arise in the Brazilian Portuguese language.

ASSUNTO(S)

pronomes locativos sentential structure and topicalization estrutura sentencial e topicalização locative pronouns movement of constituents movimento de constituintes prepositioned phrases sintagmas preposicionados

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